8 Weeks, 8 Countries, 8,000 Miles

The Final Count...

We spent our last full day in China on 08-08-08, and coincidentally, many of our total calculations would up being "8" as well. 8 weeks later, we have arrived home having visited 8 new countries, traveling 8,000 on a plane to China where we then traveled 8,000 miles on land.

In China the number 8 is representative of prosperity. We are both currently unemployed, (and anything but wealthy) but we have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience.

8 Weeks:
We left home on June 12 and arrived back home on August 9.

59 days of traveling (including Chicago)
52 days in Asia

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8 Countries:
China
Vietnam
Cambodia
Thailand
Laos
Malaysia
Myanmar
Singapore


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8,000 Miles:
The distance we traveled by bus, train and boat on our route from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur. Once we arrived in China, we traveled all the way through to Singapore, and back up to KL without flying. Needless to say, we were constantly on-the-go and we quickly learned how to sleep while sitting upright!
We spent 342 hours on transportation (the equivalent of 14 straight days) and in total, 13 over-nights on buses

We will certainly never complain on a road trip, ever.
In addition, our flight to China was approximately 8,000 miles each way.
And our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou was over 2,000 miles.
That brings our total mileage to around 26,000 miles!

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Chris predicted that Jennifer would take 17,500 pictures, which at the end of the trip was not a bad guess. The final photo count is...

12,510 pictures taken by Jennifer
619 pictures taken by Chris

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The most time we spent in any city was 4 nights (Hong Kong).
We stayed 3 nights in only 3 different cities (Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, and Kuala Lumpur).

In total, we stayed in 26 different hotel rooms (some better than others!).

"many a backpackers' nightmare"... Chungking Mansion

We definitely mastered the art of living out of our packs, rearranging our clothes like pros!

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Just to give you an idea of our budget and expenses...
Starting out, we had a living budget of $20 a day each (not including transportation). The most we ever spent on accommodation was $25 for both of us per night, and the least was $3 for both of us. Food expenses almost never pushed us over budget. Meals were anywhere from $1 each to $5 each depending on how nice of a meal we chose to eat (given: we never ate at a 5-star restaurant). At the end of the trip, not including our many splurges at markets along the way, we stayed under our budget.
The change Jenn received after buying ice cream... they didn't have a 200 dong coin, so they just threw in a stick of Doublemint!

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All said and done, the trip was a success.
We visited incredible places, saw indescribable things, and met amazing people. The realization that we just traveled for 8 weeks through 8 completely foreign countries is only just settling in.

We survived an esophageal ulcer, stomach flu, 100-degree fever, a cut-open toe, jelly fish stings and managed to never get malaria or Japanese Encephalitis. Phew!

Jennifer surviving a stomach flu atop an Angkor temple.

We endured a 17-hour local bus, dodged millions of motorbikes, survived the decrepit Chungking Mansion, trekked through cow dung, tasted foreign fruits, and explored a closed country.

We certainly had luck on our side while catching a train leaving within minutes, getting a refund for the train we actually missed, finding a taxis at 5am after being dropped in a dark bus stop, and surviving crazy Vietnamese bus drivers on winding country roads.

We learned more about the world, and about ourselves, than any classroom experience during 4 years of college. We survived lessons on patience, priorities, friendship, values, vanity, money, time, acceptance, pain... and so much more.

A lesson in losing vanity :)

We learned about foreign customs, religious rituals, and cultural norms in a place vastly different from America. We let down our guard and realized that in some areas we could make people's day by just smiling, waving, and saying "hello" in their native language. We learned to take pleasure in simple luxuries, like the occasional warm shower, or semi-clean clothes. It was the best thing either of us could have done straight out of college, and we hope you have learned from our experiences too.
Most people have not seen the things that we have seen, but we hope through pictures and stories you will understand a fraction of the things we have learned. We hope in some way this will either motivate you to travel for yourself, or change your ideas of living. Now that you know traveling for an extended period of time in a foreign country is not only possible, but affordable, practical, and incomparable, we hope you are open to the possibility of traveling there, too. And maybe next time we travel Asia all the tourists and backpackers won't be Australian or European- maybe, just maybe, we'll run into a few more Americans along the way!

"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."
-Miriam Beard

5 Senses Review: MALAYSIA & SINGAPORE

Sight: The Petronas Towers glowing through the night sky in Kuala Lumpur; What a marvelous sight. The Islamic architecture really stood out as the towers each display two interlocking squares with circles on each intersection. All of the details are brilliantly lit up to display its beauty amongst the calm night sky.

Sound: While we missed the opportunity to hear the cry of the Gibbon in the wild while in Laos/Thailand, we did hear it in the Singapore Zoo! As Chris said, "it sounds like the squeal of a teenage girl." The monkeys would talk back and forth, and swing through the jungle as they belted out their unique song. The noise was mesmerizing; I could have listened to them all day.

Taste: Cheesy Nan bread dipped in sweetened condensed milk while eating at the mamak on the streets of Kelana Jaya, Malaysia with Sam. Slightly non-traditional, definitely like no other Asian cuisine we had tried, but uniquely Malay and so delicious.

Touch: The touch of newly-printed train tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (after missing the original train). The part that stands out the most would be the relief we felt from holding those new tickets in our nervous hands. How nice it was to feel such hospitality and graciousness from the stationmaster.

Smell: As we explored Little India in KL with Sam, the smell of unique curries filled each breathe with new scents. We were able to taste several delicious curries at lunch. In addition, we enjoyed the familiar and wonderful smell of our lunch at Nando's. The smell of peri peri spices brought back many memories from our time in Australia.